Pater Meus
by missy mee
Summary: My name is Gallifrey Tyler - call me that at your peril." The story of a seventeen year old boy with two hearts and a penchant for bananas and baseball boots.
1. The David Copperfield Crap

**Disclaimer: If I was making a profit from this story I wouldn't be babysitting my sister tomorrow, would I?**

**Summary: The story of Rose and her teenage son, as told through his eyes. And od course, the father. Can't forget the father, even if he has been a lifelong absentee. And given that Rose's son can multiply pi in his head, I think we can work out who the father is, don't you?**

Might as well start with, to quote J.D. Salinger, all the 'David Copperfield crap', for want of a more arresting opening. Does make this whole process feel a bit like a labourious social networking site, apart from the fact that I'm not obliged to sell myself. Which is the key difference, because I'm crap at selling myself.

One of the main reasons for that is what I'm about to tell you – don't laugh – my name is Gallifrey Tyler.

Well, now I've had chance to think about it, you probably can laugh if you want. It's be hard not to when you're faced with someone introducing themselves with a stupid name like Gallifrey, so really I reckon it's only reasonable. I don't ever get called Gallifrey, though, mainly because I'd get beaten up verbally or physically whenever they took the register at school. As Gallifrey or any abbreviations thereof (Gall? Gallie?) will ultimately result in my crucifixion, I go by Ty, (abbreviated version of Tyler. Handy, eh?) Everyone calls me that, even my Gran. She agrees with me about the name, because she's a sane, if fairly vocal, human being.

I've spent the last seventeen years giving my mum the benefit of the doubt about my her lapse of sanity when she named me, and assumed that she was a bit screwy on epidural at the time and didn't come back down to Earth until it was too late. She's not the kooky, New Age-y type, my mum. You'd expect her to call her kid Tom or Joe or something equally inoffensive, instead of something that sounds like a Lord of the Rings character ('Tis the elf Gallifrey! He has the Ring of Power! Egad!) so it must have been a case of being pumped full of happy pills. Or, as my suspicion has been in recent years, it's something to do with my Dad, but that's rocky territory that I prefer not to enter, so I tend to go for the epidural option. It was only when I was about twelve that I realised that my mum goes all weird and quiet when I start harping on about my name, so I do it a lot less now. Granted, I still have lapses of bitching about it occasionally, but not quite as much as I did. Which is probably a good thing, because there was a point when I talked of little else. Probably a complex.

Apart from her outstanding display of idiocy when it came to naming me, my mum isn't half bad. She's not your stereotypical chavtastic single mother package, living in some grim council flat, complete with a stringy of dodgy blokes and a drink problem. Yeah, we live in a flat, but that's because it'd be stupid to have anything bigger with just the two of us, and it's a nice high rise one on the South Bank. She has got a bit of a council estate accent, I suppose, but she does her best to iron it out for work, and most people are none the wiser. At home she plays it pretty fast and loose with the dropped 'g's and 'innit's, but that doesn't mean anything particularly, unless you're feeling snobby. She's had occasional boyfriends over the years, of course, some of whom I've even liked, but she hasn't ever been in love with any of them, which I put down to her having been so utterly and irrevocably screwed over by my father (who, if you hadn't guessed, has been missing in action for my entire life). No booze problem either, unless you count getting giggly after one Baileys too many at Gran's Christmas party. And let's face it, when you're listening to my Gran singing karaoke, intoxicated is that best way to be.

Everyone's always very interested when they hear that my mum works for Torchwood, and is pretty high up there (high up enough to have a reserved parking space, which for her was the most exciting thing about the job). It's not really that special apart from that, to be honest, and she's always saying she's fed up with all the bureaucracy and narrow mindedness and she ought to go freelance. Dunno how far she'd get running a freelance alien detecting institute from our front room. Not that she ever will, because I think she's got a lot of ties to the place, whether or not she'll admit it. Plus, I reckon she feels that she owes it to Grandad's memory to stick with the place. Personally I reckon that's stupid and he'd much rather she was happy, but try telling her that. My mum is the most stubborn person I know, apart from myself, and I don't have to worry about arguments with myself. For the most part. There's always the 'Do I really need to eat another banana?' internal debate, but the less said about that, the better.

My careers advisors suggested that I apply to Torchwood myself for a career when I leave school, because apparently what she calls my 'confidence' combined with the ability to multiply pi in my head is just what Torchwood look for in new recruits. Of course, what she calls confidence, my Gran calls 'being a gob on a stick', and I'd rather invite the army to use my balls for target practice than go and work for a corrupt, fucked up institute like Torchwood.

Oh, I do have a job, after school and at weekends. I work in the back room of a second hand DVD player shop, fixing other people's buggered up DVD players. The money's crap but we're not exactly skint, and anyway, I like fixing stuff, the more broken and complicated the better. I'd rather drop school and work at the shop full time, but my mum goes steely eyed whenever I bring the subject up, and gives me a lecture about how she'll be damned if I become a dropout the way she did. I don't know why it bothers her, because it doesn't take A levels to see she's clever, and she's done fine without them. But like I said, stubborn as hell. So I'm stuck, doing my A levels and bored out of my skull. All of my teachers assumed I'd do all sciences and become a doctor or something, but I don't like people in general enough to try and get along with them, especially when I'm trying to stop their privates being ravaged by necrotizing fasciitis. And anyway, I don't like doing what people expect me to do. Often I'll go out of my way to avoid it, which led to my bow tie phase, and also meant that I kept Latin for GCSE against my better judgement.I kept physics, because nuclear fusion makes me smile, but I dropped the others and took art and history instead, because I liked them and because I could. I like drawing cogs and the inner workings of machines, and my girlfriend Cassie when she's asleep. Those drawings aren't included in my coursework sketchbook, though. I'd thought a bit about keeping Maths as well, but then I decided that it really wasn't worth it, given the stick I constantly get from my teacher about not setting out my working when using the quadratics formula. When I point out that I don't use the poxy formula because I don't need the poxy formula, as nine times out of ten the answer would be painfully obvious if anyone actually bothered to use some logic, she has the most ridiculous hissy fits and accuses me of cheating. Mum laughed when I told her.

"You must run rings around the poor woman. Try to humour us mere humans, sweetheart. We mean well."

All my life it's been my mum's little joke that I'm actually an alien (it's not the best joke in the world but she enjoys it), due to my little condition. Well, some might argue that it's more along the lines of a gigantic condition, but they're just narrow minded and confined by traditional organ proportions.

Because, you see, I have two hearts.

Yeah, that's right. Deux. Dos. Two full sized, fully functional hearts. Yeah, I'm beating out a constant samba, baby.

When I was little, it never even occurred to me that it wasn't one hundred percent normal. I thought, yeah, two lungs, two kidneys, two ears, two… well, never mind… so why not two hearts? By the time I'd realised that it wasn't exactly considered the status quo, my mum had told me about people with three kidneys or one lung or whatever, and basically my spare heart was just a foetal fuck up. She didn't call it that though, obviously. She called it 'special', which is usually a euphemism for 'disability', but it's not like it does me any harm. I just keep quiet about it, because some Doctors might disagree, or try to filch the spare one for an organ donation. I don't even think my Gran knows. My girlfriend nearly had a corany when she first gave me a hug, though.

Cassie is my first what you might call 'serious' girlfriend, only serious is not a phrase that is often used in conjunction with her, because she is literally incapable of taking anything seriously, ever. But whatever you want to call it, we've been going strong and steady for eight months now. I've even met her parents, which was fucking scary. But she's a cool girl, and I care a hell of a lot about her. She's not like me – by which I mean she doesn't have my superior intellect (which, with my roguish charm, makes for a killer combination), but she's what I'd call emotionally intelligent. She takes Sociology, Drama and Music, because Sociology and Drama are piss easy, and music's the only thing she cares about particularly. She plays the cello and the piano, and she's always writing funny little songs and playing them to me down the phone at two in the morning. She's got a piano in her bedroom, and often I'll go round there and watch her play the piano for hours.

I do realise that this entire rant has been, thus far, a massive series of tangents, but a continuous set of tangents creates a perfect circle, and so we arrive back at the David Copperfield crap. I'm Gallifrey Tyler, call me that at your peril, I live in central London with my mum, and I like quantum physics, bananas, converse trainers and chips. I hate pears, Art Deco, people treating fictional characters like they're real (i.e. So what was Iago's motivation?) and the complete body of work of Coldplay (I think it's cruel to tread on kittens, add a piano riff and and some whimpy snare drumming and then call it music). My mother and I exist within what has always been pretty harmonious existence, apart from the occasional spat about my time keeping abilities. Or lack thereof.

I shut the front door very, very quietly, hoping agaist hope that Mum didn't wait up, although it was a pretty futile hope considering that I knew full well she always waits up, absolutely without fail. It's one of the few things that she's pretty strict about. There aren't many things – she'll let me have Cassie over for the night if she's going to be away (I wouldn't particularly want her over for the night if my mum was going to be around) and she's said she doesn't mind if I take my allowance straight out of her purse, but she's really very hot on lateness. She worries a lot, I think. It's like she trusts _me _not to start injecting China White heroin into my eyeballs, or run off to join the circus, but she just doesn't trust the world enough to keep me safe. The problem is, I really am completely shit at being on time.

* * *

"Where've you been?"

She doesn't take her eyes off the screen, which is a sign that this could either turn into a full scale shouting march or a casual reprimand, depending on how good I am. If she takes her eyes off that telly I'm completely dead.

"The pub," I replied truthfully. It's actually very hard work lying to my mum, because she can read me like a book.

"How come they served you?"

I'm safe.

"I had a coke."

"Hmm."

I don't think she believes me, but I'm actually telling the truth. I don't really like alcohol that much. Don't like the taste. When I say so people tend to laugh and inform me condescendingly that the taste isn't the point. I think it is, though. If you're going to destroy a load of brain cells it ought to be for a good reason, which is why my feelings on alcohol do not extend to the banana daquiris. But I'm not exactly going to order one of those on a Friday night at the Albert, am I?

"You should go to bed, Mum."

She looks exhausted. Often she won't remember that she does in fact need to go to bed in order to prevent passing out on her desk at work, so I have to remind her. It's in ways like that that she actually takes quite a bit of looking after. Not that she's fragile, or anything. She's one of the strongest people I've ever met, and she'd probably deck you for suggesting otherwise. Yeah, she cries during news footage of Darfur and sad episodes of Coronation Street, or when I actually remember Mother's Day and make her breakfast in bed, but when it counts she's tough as old boots. She was strong for Grandad right up until the end, even when the chemo made things really bad, and she's been coping with Gran leaning on her for the last two years. And hell, she's even coped with bringing me up without bashing my head against the floor repeatedly, and personally I reckon there's no better evidence for inner strength than that.

And yes, I do realise that throughout this David Copperfield crap I've come across as a complete Mama's boy. There's a very good reason for that, the reason being that I completely am. When you're a geeky little fucker (well, not little. Very tall, actually. Six two or six three) living in a single parent/only child household, you do grow up pretty tight. I mean, we've got Gran, but mum and I have a knack of always being on the same wavelength in conversation, and Gran's always talking about something different (i.e. TK Maxx, her mate Kerry, and so on). Mum asked Gran to move in with us after Grandad died of course, but Gran said no, she'd coped with being alone before and she could still do it. Not quite sure what she meant by that, but I was sort of relieved. Mum doesn't fuss in the way Gran does, and although it's heartless, I do think that Gran would have disrupted what is currently a fairly chilled out existence. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do when it comes to moving out and stuff, because I don't know if Mum would cope on her own. But on the other hand, I don't exactly want to end up like some weird, physics loving version of a Norman Bates figure. For now, though, we'll stay tight. We get takeaways together and watch Scrubs together. She buys me clothes and I even wear them sometimes, and we get along fine. I know some people think it's a bit weird to be close to your mother when you're a seventeen year old guy, but that's the best thing about growing up with my mum. She raised me firmly instilled with the knowledge that I don't have to give a toss about what other people think, and that's served me well my entire life. I remember when I was about eight, coming home from school crying because this kid had been picking on me. Because of my name, of course. She'd grabbed me tightly by the shoulders and looked me straight in the eye, and asked me if I actually cared what a snotty little bastard like Jamie Wright thought. She didn't say snotty little bastard, but her tone definitely implied it.

And because it was a genuine question rather than an accusation or a reproach, it actually got me thinking. And in the end I realised that no, I didn't actually care what Jamie Wright thought about my name, and therefore Jamie Wright could never upset me again. I was untouchable, and that was the most powerful armour that anyone could have given me.

I still thought Gallifrey was a stupid name, though. Jamie did have a point.

"You're right, love. I promise I will go in a bit."

She stood up, and gave me a kiss on the cheek, ruffling my hair up. I made the perfunctory groaning noise and looked at her seriously, taking in the purple bags underneath her eyes.

"I mean it. Sleep. It's good. Helps the cells regenerate."

She rolled her eyes.

"Don't use science to boss me about, horrible child. I'm still your mum."

"Sure you are."

I've got no idea what I mean by that, but if I say it whilst widening my eyes crazily and speaking in a psycho voice, she gets really freaked out. Sometimes.

"Go to bed."

Not tonight, apparently.

**A/N: This is my first Doctor Who multichaptered fic, although I've done a few one-shots in this fandom. Hope you enjoy.**

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	2. Intuition

"Righty ho then, team. Consider this one. Assume that the universe is infinite, and as such possibilities therein are infinite. Therefore, the logical conclusion is surely that endless parallel universes, which encompass infinite possibilities are inevitable?"

Mr Anselm, my Physics teacher, leaned forward onto his desk, grinning at us in an aren't-I-open-minded-and-thought-provoking way.

"Discuss."

Call me a weird little sci-fi nerd (it'd be a fair assumption, I'm the first to admit that I'm a fully paid up member of Nerds Anonymous), but I've always been intrigued by the idea of parallel universes, running alongside our own, unreachable, untouchable, but undeniably there. The thing is, most people think the theory isn't even proper science, the product of an overactive imagination. But that's the fundamental point; the problem with the collective Most People is that they can't accept infinity, because they don't have enough of an imagination. They try to find loopholes in the concept, or argue their way out of it, but that's the beauty of it. You can't argue your way out of forever.

Jesus, what part of 'forever' do people not get? It's part of the whole 'we are not alone' deal – it's bloody minded arrogance on the part of the human race to consider themselves to be the only possible form of developed life in the entirety of infinity. I wonder if all intelligent life is this conceited.

"Sir?"

A girl in the back row stuck her hand up; "If there were parallel universes, does that mean we'd get to them if we traveled far enough? If we had, like, a rocket that could break lightspeed."

"You never would, because they're an infinity away. But assuming you managed it? You'd rip a hole in the fabric of the universe and cause chaos," I replied, without thinking. No surprises there, then. I dunno why I was so sure that that was the answer, but there was just a weird instinct somewhere in me, which told me that was the answer. It was the same instinct that told me a quadratic equation wouldn't factorise, or that my father isn't dead. A strong sense of certainty, no weaker for being completely inexplicable. It seemed, to me, a given that the divide between universes could be described as a fabric, somehow. As opposed to… I dunno. A line. Or a void, or synapse, or something.

Anselm advanced on me, looking to show me up, as ever. Suppose he needs something to get his jollies from, seeing as ten to one his wife doesn't love and he spends his evenings looking up comic book porn.

"And how, Tyler are you so sure about that? Been hopping between parallel universes lately?"

I shrugged. I've always dealt with teachers in the same way I've dealt with bullies – I don't let them see if they're pissing me off. The best way to bring down a teacher, I've found, is to treat them like an equal. Don't feel that you need to answer to them.

"Intuition."

He rolled his eyes patronisingly, tutting under his stupid seventies moustache. Teachers hate it when you use intuition in something that's supposed to be based on a tired foundation of fact, especially the sciences. They can't stand the idea of you being able to have a hunch about a subject that you don't happen to have a degree in.

"Of course. Intuition. Now if you don't mind, I have a lesson to teach."

I looked very fixedly at my hands. I wash them, but try telling that to the ink stains all over my fingers.

"So…" he slammed his hand on the desk, probably thinking he sounded very cool and authoritative, "Parallel universes, if they do in fact exist, would be unreachable and untouchable, because they lie beyond the boundaries of infinity. Nothing is bigger than infinity, therefore it would be impossible to reach any parallel universes that are out there."

I was in the middle having one of those internal debates that I mentioned earlier, only this time it wasn't about delicious, potassium giving fruit. It was my desire to point out just how wrong my stupid Physics teacher was, mud wrestling with my self respect, which demanded that I don't show myself as being a complete arrogant bastard (although I am one.) The impulse won, obviously. They always do, hence my smartarse reputation. I stuck my hand up. Anselm sighed.

"Tyler?"

"Infinity plus one, sir."

There were a few sniggers from around the room. Anselm raised an eyebrow at me.

"True."

The same girl who'd been going on about rockets and lightspeed said loudly from the back, "Don't be stupid! You can't have infinity plus one! Then you might a well have infinity plus two, or infinity plus seventy nine! It quantifies infinity, which is impossible by definition!"

"No it doesn't, actually," I replied, starting to enjoy myself, "It's infinity plus one. It's beyond the beyond. It's the extra step."

My Physics group, teacher included, were staring at me with varying expressions of bamboozlement. I walked up to the desk and grabbed the marker pen out of Anselm's hand. He didn't resist.

"It's like this," I started, drawing a large circle on the board. It was actually a pretty decent circle, for freehand. I may not be able to lie to my mother or sustain a conversation with a normal human being, but I do draw a damn good circle. Everyone needs a talent, I suppose.

"A circle is infinite, right? If you were going round it, you'd be going on forever, therefore a perfect circle can be expressed by the term I, for infinity. However…" I rubbed out a little section of the circle, "If you were to make the expression I plus one…" I drew most of the section back, but left a little wrinkle, "Then you send a ripple within infinity, as it rearranges itself to encompass the extra one. So if you were to apply that to the universe, assuming that the universe is indeed infinite…" I spun around to face them, grinning like a loony, "You'd have yourself a little ripply dipply in the universe. Which would create a temporary rearrangement in the fabric of space and time, however brief. You could utilise this is order to cross from one universe to another. You'd not be technically breaching the fabric of the universe, you'd be bypassing it."

Having got this out of my system, I realised that my Physics class were all staring at me like I'd grown two heads. This is why I don't mention the two hearts thing.

"Um… so yeah," I finished lamely, shuffling over to Anselm's desk and handing him back his pen.

"Thought I was supposed to be the teacher, Tyler," he said weakly. I shifted, feeling uncomfortable. Hellishly so.

"Um, yeah. I'll just… go back to my desk…"

"Unless you want to disprove the existence of the atom first?"

"S'alright."

"Jolly good."

I didn't say anything for the rest of the lesson, much to the rest of the class's relief (I do realise that I'm really annoying when I go into an all-knowing, aren't-I-clever rant. They're just irresistible, somehow). Partly I was silent because I was a bit embarrassed, and partly because in my brain, I was starting to develop my little theory.

* * *

_Say I had an infinite number of particles? Well, that's simple enough – put a load of electrons into a never ending loop (in the form of a circuit) and send them spinning round faster than the speed of light. Voila, you've got the power of infinity. Then (and this is the piece de resistance) you add one more lithium particle at the key moment, when the speed of the thing has reached a climax, and you've sent a ripple through infinity. Pop through said ripple, and you've reached beyond the universe. You're either in a parallel universe (yay!) or a little bit dead (boo!)._

_Might be either. Brilliant, eh?_

_But the real question is… how to get the power to make the particles spin around that fast? I mean – the speed of light – that's not nothing. If you think about sources of power, there's nuclear fusion, hydropower, wind power… etc. But none of those would be strong enough, and I don't exactly have access to any of them. Unless…_

_The thing about science is that people forget that things like nuclear fusion isn't the only way to get energy. They're so wrapped up in the ins and outs and all the jargon that makes them feel clever that they forget that scientists aren't the only clever people out there. They're not the only ones that have power…._

_Hmm… power can be found in sublimity. Well, there are plenty of sublime things knocking about. Two millennia of human culture has sort of got that one sorted. _

_Hang on!_

_I had a plan, simple, beautiful, fully formed in my mind._

_I was going to need Cassie…_

* * *

You could probably count the number of times that my mum has mentioned my father on one, albeit slightly abnormal, hand. I mean, of course my father: the sperm donor, comes up in conversation occasionally, (i.e. 'I didn't have many boyfriends after your dad', 'Your dad would be as proud of you as I am', 'Your dad loves you Ty, even if he can't be here', etc. etc.) But my father: the unique human being, with his own set of genes and quirks and tea preferences and temperament? Yeah, he crops up a lot more rarely. Most of the references she makes to him could be about any faceless, generic Joe Blog on the entire planet. But very, very occasionally, an ounce of his personality slips out, and I hang onto it tightly.

_Exhibit one (in reference to my banana fixation):_

"You're worse than your dad!"

So my dad liked bananas. Almost as much as I do, by the sound of it. Since I was eight, I've treasured that little morsel of my father's human side. Once, in primary school, when we were told to draw a nice picture of our family, I drew my mum (a mess of pink and yellow dress and hair), my gran (with a big smile that took up most of her face, brandishing a teacup the size of a bucket), my grandad (with a gigantic pink bald pate) and my dad, a stick man clutching a fluorescent yellow banana and grinning from ear to ear.

My mum cried when I showed her that picture, and I panicked, because I hadn't realised that it would make mummy sad. My dad never appeared in any of my family portraits again.

_Exhibit two – (at Parents Evening when I was in Year Four, when asked about my precocious mathematical prowess):_

"Yeah, I can barely keep up with him. He gets it from his dad."

I'd choked, and stopped messing around with my Rubiks cube in order to gawp at my mother. My Year Four teacher raised her eyebrows significantly, and said nothing. I asked Mum about it later, but she dodged the question. She's always been good at that.

_Exhibit three – Whilst in an argument with my gran:_

It was the usual thing that Gran comes out with occasionally – when is mum going to find a bloke, I need a father figure (I really don't, actually, but try telling that to Gran), she can't spend the rest of her life being cut up over Him (for some reason, the capitals feel appropriate. My gran always refers to my dad as Him, and I've learned to infer from her tone just who she's talking about.) I don't know if my mum was stressed or something that day, but something inside her definitely snapped, and she lost her rag in a way that I'd never seen previously, or really witnessed ever since, save exhibit four.

"What do you expect me to do, Mum? Forget about him? _Replace _him? Because I'm telling you now that that isn't gonna happen. I told him forever, and I damn well meant it! And I still mean it, Mum. Don't you think that anything's changed! Because what he is, and what we were – what we _had _– it's all worth too much to just let go!"

I think that she'd have carried on, but it was only at that point that she remembered I was in the room. I was ten at the time, and I don't think I'll ever be able to forget the strength, and the love, and the rage that I heard in her voice that day. It was one of the things that gave me the conviction that she's one of the strongest people I've ever met.

_Exhibit four – when I was fourteen, and an angsty little prick._

I was having an argument with Mum, actually. It was something incredibly minor that had escalated the way that arguments do; into the type of massive row when you drag back a load of hurtful crap, because you're in a hating mood and because you can. Mum asked me in a very quiet, very controlled voice, if 'all this' was anything to do with, well… my dad (or lack thereof). It was nothing to do with that, but I jumped at the excuse to hurt her, and exploded completely. I came out with all this awful stuff about how my dad never even bothered to visit, so he must be some worthless junkie, if he even knew about my existence in the first place, and maybe that was _my _why she hadn't ever told me his name – because she'd never bothered to find out what it was.

It was the only time that I can remember that my mum's smacked me, and I'm first to say that I deserved it. Like I said, I was fourteen, and when you're fourteen you go round thinking you've got some god given excuse to act like an utter little wanker. Or at least, I did. My mum, having whacked me one, hissed that there were a lot of important things about my dad, but his name wasn't one of them, and she'd have thought I was intelligent enough to know that. Then she walked out, because she said she couldn't bear to look at me. I was left to stew in my own juice, and hate my father, and the gap that he stood for.

At the time, I behaved like a self righteous little bastard about the whole thing. We never really even discussed the argument afterwards (the cause of it was so petty that I'd actually forgotten it within a couple of hours, and I still don't remember what it was). We ignored one another for a couple of days, and then went back to normal, and acted like the whole thing hadn't happened. I wish it hadn't. I still regret saying stuff like that to my mum, especially as she told me at the time in no uncertain terms that I was utterly, categorically wrong about the junkie thing. In a way, it's an easy assumption to make. I wanted my dad to be absent for the same reason as all the other absent dads I knew of – a wastrel good-for-nothing who my mum was better off without.

_Exhibit five – concerning my new pair of converse:_

"No, I like them, honestly. Your dad had a pair just like them. Only they were a bit mankier looking than that."

Well, the idea of shoe preferences being hereditary seems reasonable enough to me. Converse are, after all, the most comfortable, wearable, effortlessly sexy type of shoe in the world. Mum's been buying me them since before I started walking, and I've always worn them, right up until they fall apart on my feet, when they have to be surgically removed. Converse, in my opinion, never go out of fashion. Well, they do, but I'm talking about _my _sense of fashion, which is usually decent (apart from the bow tie phase, but I try not to talk about that). So my dad liked converse. The guy had good taste. Big deal.

A bit later, I found myself wondering whether the fact that I wear the same shoes as my dad (which, even by my standards, is deeply uncool) is balanced out by the fact that I've never met the man. I decided that it was.

_Exhibit six – last night, when I was making my infinite particles circuity… thing:_

"What're you up to, love?" Mum had stuck her head around the door at about midnight to find me tinkering. She's never minded me always being late up – I've never needed more than about four hours sleep. It's such a bloody waste of life. Night time's the best time to contemplate, think things through, work all of out the knots in your mind.

Mum doesn't sleep much either, but not because she doesn't get tired – purple bags are more or less a permanent fixture under her eyes. She just… doesn't like sleeping. Which sounds very weird. But I can't think of any other reason for her permanent insomnia.

I'd grinned to myself at her question.

"Never you mind."

I can never bring myself to tell people what I'm working on. Whenever anyone asks, I'm always overcome with the desire to bite their nosey beak off.

"Right. Sorry. That's me told, then." She'd sighed, "Jesus Christ, it's like your dad all over again."

It was said so casually that I didn't even realise she'd even said it until a few minutes later. When I finally did, there was no rush of unadulterated joy, like there had been when I was eight and I found out about the bananas. Instead, I just felt like a little bead of warmth was moving slowly through my veins. I found myself with an idiotic grin on my face as I worked.

* * *

"You want me to do _what?_"

When I rang Cassie and asked her to come over, I think she expected to find me bored and wanting someone to have a pointless conversation with, or in urgent need of a good, straightforward shag. I think she was a bit surprised when she arrived that I was hopping around the flat with bits of wire sticking out of my hair, hyper as a flea on speed.

"I want you to play a Bach concerto, or something equally prestigious in your strange little music-person world, whilst hooked up to my little circuity thing."

"In order to generate an inordinate amount of power in the hopes that it'll transport you to an alternate dimension?"

"Parallel universe. And not in the hopes. That implies it's unlikely to work. But apart from that, yes. That's exactly what I want you to do."

I was smiling at her in a slightly manical fashion. I thought she was used to it, but she did look a bit disconcerted by my sudden burst of excitement and energy. Fair enough. I'm usually the epitome of grumpy indolence, apart from when I'm working on something new or dangerous. A prematurely middle aged old git, is her loving little nickame for me.

"Sorry, Ty, sweetheart, I know you're a bit of a genius…"

"A _bit…?_"

"But a Bach concerto?"

I was standing in the middle of my room while she lounged on my bed.

"Yup." I considered for a bit, then backtracked, "Well, I suppose you could read Hamlet's soliloquy or something, but you're more likely to botch that up."

"Cheers."

I went back to pacing the length of my room.

"Don't you get it? The power required to fuel creativity to the degree of sublimity is equivalent to fifty nuclear fusion plants! Maybe even more! The complete works of Shakespeare could probably sustain the entire galaxy! It's extraordinary amounts of power – it's just, no one's bothered to tap into it."

"Possibly because it doesn't _work?_"

"It'll work," I replied cheerfully, slightly surprised by my own total confidence. I knew that this was the answer, in my gut and in my hearts, but how could I explain that certainty without sounding completely batty?

Well, I couldn't, so I didn't try. Cassie was just going to have to trust me.

"So you want me to come into your Physics lesson, with a keyboard (which, by the way, I'll have to go to the trouble of stealing from the music department), which'll be hooked up to a weird little circuit thing wrapped around you, that you've made using bits of old DVD players, in the hope that the resultant power will transport you to an alternate universe. You've done no preliminary investigations, you're taking a gamble with the whole concept of creative power, we don't even know that parallel universes exist – basically, there's no reason whatsoever to believe that this harebrained scheme of yours has the faintest chance of working, and yet you're prepared to risk all that in order to prove a point to Mr Anselm?"

I considered the question for a second, but the answer seemed stupidly obvious.

"Yes."

She sighed heavily.

"You, mister, are bloody lucky that I've got a free period during your Physics lesson tomorrow."

I decided not to mention the minor risk that I might, y'know, die, if the experiment only partially worked and I ended up in the wrong place. Not that I think she believed I was going to be transported anywhere, lethal or not. But still. Just to be on the safe side, best to skim lightly over that bit.

* * *

Mr Anselm regarded me over his glasses (a Dumbledore complex, possibly?), a bored expression on his face.

"You want to do a demo in which you believe you will travel to an alternate universe during my lesson?"

I nodded.

"I've got my hypothesis, sir."

I handed him a gigantic sheaf of equations in my own illegible handwriting, and then added as an afterthought, "With my girlfriend on the piano."

"With your girlfriend on the piano."

"Exactly."

Anselm sighed.

"Tyler, you're an intelligent boy. A very intelligent boy, in fact. You've obviously put a lot of work into this hypothesis of yours (I'd like to point out that at this point he hadn't even bothered to look at it, but all the numbers and symbols looked very impressive.) But the thing is, I think you're selling yourself short, faffing about with all this science fiction. Because that's what it is, Tyler." He tapped my hypothesis on the desk - "Science fiction. Apply yourself to the _facts,_ (Jesus Christ, has this guy never heard of Mr Gradgrind? Probably not, come to think of it. Science teachers tend to consider the Arts as lightweight, because they like to be safe in their little world of _facts) _and you'll go far. But this…" he waved my hypothesis around so that the papers rustled - "This, Tyler, is just a colossal waste of your talent."

I gave him an insincere smile, completely unperturbed. He could think that I was some kind of delusional, if that was what floated his boat. But I still really, really needed to rub it in his face when I proved that I was right and he was a narrow minded tosser. Sod him and his facts. I really wanted to do this demo.

"Can I do it anyway, sir? As, y'know, a practical demonstration of the limitations of modern science?" _and how stupid delusional teenage boys show themselves up by being too pig headed._

Anselm sighed. Suppose it must have been a difficult decision for him – a chance for him to watch me fail and deliver a lecture on why, like the smarmy bastard he was, weighed up against the idea of losing precious class time that he could be using to shove endless facts down our throats, all ready for regurgitation when exam time rolls around.

"If you really must. Although it's a waste of time."

"Of course, sir."

"Might be rather embarrassing when you fail. No offence."

"Absolutely."

"Well then. Suit yourself."

"I will."

I love it when people say that. It's practically a license to do whatever the hell I want.

**Chapter two – the longest of any submission I've done to this site! It is indeed bare long.**

**Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed chapter one. Feedback was hugely appreciated, lly the constructive reviews that I got from Kates Master, but thanks also go to The Duchess of Belleza, Spread-Your-Wings, horsemaniac, Logan13, broadwayjavajunkie, amd JustBiteTheHuman. Thanks also to everyone who favourited or alerted this story, it would have been EVEN nicer if you'd reviewed, but can't have everything. **

**The most positive feedback that I got was that Ty is coming across as a well rounded character who people can already picture, and I was chuffed to bits, because that was my exact intention. I've been working out the aspects of my two main Ocs (Ty and Cassie) in a huge amount of detail, and I'm so pleased that that seems to have paid off. And just so you know, we'll be seeing the Doctor in the next chapter (and boy, do I LOVE writing him!)**

**But… I might need a bit of motivation, so…**

**REVIEW ******


	3. Parallel to What?

"Ty…"

Cassie stood in front of me awkwardly (awkward? Since when was Cassie awkward with me? S'pose she knows I'm not used to failure and was a bit nervy about how I was going to react. Not like I was going to spontaneously combust in light of my failure. Much.) as my Physics class trickled out. I knew she was trying not to state the obvious, bless her. The bloody demo hadn't worked, and I was left standing there like a lemon with the stupid circuit round my neck, whilst my Physics class tried to be nice about the whole thing (as I was clearly not all there and they wanted to humour the mad kid. Nice of them). From the look on Anselm's face you'd have thought Christmas had come early, and he'd received a shiny new batch of comic book porn. Wanker.

"Well," he started, sounding jubilant, because, as I've previously pointed out, this is what he gets his kicks out of,"That didn't go too well, did it, Tyler?"

I forced a smile. Dunno why I thought smiling would be a good idea, but it's what I do. If in doubt, pretend to be happy as a king. Even if no sane person would be.

"No, sir."

"Now do you see what I mean about science fiction?"

"Very clearly, sir." _You'd know. You probably spend your evenings watching Star Trek with Klingon subtitles._

"Ty, I've got to go," Cassie announced quickly, gripping my hand in sympathy (not kissing me in front of Anselm, for which I was heartily grateful) and slipping past him and out of the door, the keyboard that she'd brought with her tucked under her arm. Great, Cass. Go to bloody orchestra practice and leave me with not a soul to roll my eyes at. Very charitable.

Anselm ranted at me for a few more minutes, essentially implying that I'm an arrogant little narcissist and I need to realise that there's a line between real life and fantasy. All I can say is, I'm not the one who thinks he looks good in a magenta shirt. I nodded and smiled, which probably added to his impression that I was delusional. Well, that's fine with me. It's funny to see how people respond to you when they think you're not all there. After my bollocking (abridged, because he had a department meeting) he fucked off and left me to clear up my circuity thing. Yeah, sir. Thanks for offering to lend a hand.

It _should_ have worked. Yet it hadn't, for no reason that I could work out. I'd been stood there with the thing around my neck, as Cassie played the Bach whatsit. I think my nerves must have been affecting my hearing somehow, because it didn't sound as good as usual, even though all the notes seemed to be in the right places. Number seven, Cassie had chosen, in D minor. Should have been a dead cert. I'd felt the energy pulsing through the circuit, and when I'd pressed the button to add that one vital particle, there hadn't been a doubt in my mind.

And it hadn't broken, or anything. Apart from the fact that it hadn't worked, the circuit was functioning beautifully.

Sighing, I pulled the circuit from my neck. I felt like tearing the damn thing apart, such was my frustration. And then…

I'm not sure how to say this. It's going to sound beyond ridiculous, since the thing hadn't worked during my demo. But when I gripped it…

It was like I got a little shock, from static electricity. Not exactly surprising, it had had electrons racing around it at the speed of light a few moments before. But it was only when I got that little shock that I realised I was feeling distinctly odd. Like something was pulling at every cell of my body, gently at first, then stronger. I stumbled, wondering if the circuit had magnetised the iron in my blood or something. It could happen.

But then the tugging feeling gave a last, decisive yank, and there was an explosion of light. And then…?

* * *

Okay. This was not what I was expecting. Well, to be honest, I don't actually know what I _was _expecting, so I don't really have anything to go by in that statement. But I'm fairly sure my hypothesis didn't involve materialising face-down in what appeared to be someone's front room. But not. Because most people's front rooms had windows, and this place didn't. Besides, there was this strange, throbbing hum, which I doubted was central heating.

And then I noticed a fortysomething ginger woman, staring at me with a slack jaw and bulging eyes.

"Who the _hell _are you?" she choked, slowly going puce.

I didn't see that telling the woman my name would be especially constructive in this situation. It seemed to me that she'd benefit more from my explaining why I'd materialised on the rug in her windowless, noisy front room.

"Sorry," I started, sounding unusually polite. For me, anyway. Cassie and my mum are always saying that I'm too rude to people. Must work on. And if I was going to appear in front of this ginger woman and nearly give her a heart attack, I'd like to point out that of course I had the grace to be apologetic. I'm socially inept, not stupid. "This might sound like an odd question, but… is this a parallel universe?"

The woman goggled at me. I was never going to get much out of her, I realised. Only fair. I'd materialised on her carpet. She didn't owe me anything.

"That depends."

A man's voice spoke up suddenly from the doorway, and I whipped my head around. Tall bloke, standing in the doorway dressed in converse (why is it that even at times like these I notice other people's shoes?) and a blue suit, with a weird gleam in his eye. "Parallel to what?"

**Okay, I know it's a short chapter, but I felt that this and the next chapter needed breaking up. I realise that it's not my best, but it's very much a filler between the good stuff. I think you can guess where Ty is now, and who he's with. I'll try to get the next (hopefully meatier) chapter up within the next couple of days, I just couldn't merge the two successfully.**

**I'd also like to explain a couple of technical problems that come with working with a Mac. For one, the first line of everything I post seems to be repeated, and for another, my line breaks and suchlike don't get recognized. This means I've got to wait and use my brother's PC to get this all sexifed (as I've recently done with all my other fics) using the document editor. For now though, I crave your indulgence.**

**Do review, I still love to hear comments. Especially if they're irrelevant. And can I point out to everyone that this fandom is SO much better for reviews? You get much longer, more substantial reviews with more constructive criticism, which is absolutely lovely. I was also amused to receive a flame for, of all things, the name Gallifrey. Dear dear, someone's not been reading a word apart from the summary. shakes head in despair silly people.**


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